


The Death of Innocence

by stew (julie)



Series: Reno's ex-wives [2]
Category: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984)
Genre: Disillusionment, F/M, deadbeat dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1990-11-20
Updated: 1990-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22287448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/stew
Summary: Tommy reminds Reno of his promise to tell him about Reno’s second wife.
Series: Reno's ex-wives [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604251





	The Death of Innocence

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Not the most admirable portrait of a Cavalier! 
> 
> **First published:** in my zine “Samurai Errant: Cavalier Tales Quixotic and Profane” #4 on 20 November 1990

# The Death of Innocence

♦

There weren’t all that many occasions on which you had the right to get royally pissed, Reno thought to himself, slumped alone with a bottle in a corner away from the main festivities. Someone else’s wedding, your own divorce. Your boss’s farewell lunch, your promotion. The day a close friend dies… Reno lifted his head to again drink in the sight of Rawhide, sitting pale but happy among the revelers. A new occasion to add to the list: the day Dr. Buckaroo Banzai declares that friend to be not only resurrected but fully operational. Sam and McIlvaine were somewhere around being feted as well, but Reno’s heart was too overwhelmed at Rawhide’s recovery right now to do anything more than congratulate them. 

It appeared that Perfect Tommy had worked through very similar thought processes to Reno’s. The blond weaved unsteadily over to Reno’s corner, playing havoc with the older man’s focus. 

‘I remember!’ Tommy declared, abruptly sitting beside his friend. 

‘What?’ Reno slurred. 

‘You promised – last time we got drunk. The night after Yoyodyne. I just remembered what you promised.’

‘Damn.’ 

‘A promise is a promise. You said you’d tell me about your second wife.’ 

‘More fool me.’ 

‘I wanna know! Come on, I haven’t even had _one_ wife yet. I do not have your wealth of experience.’ 

‘You’re young – got plenty of time ahead of you for plenty of wives.’ 

‘I was sort of hoping to only have one, actually,’ Tommy confided. 

Reno sighed. ‘Well, I’d always hoped that, too,’ he said. Another sigh before he added, ‘OK, I’ll tell you about Dianne, as long as you’re not a maudlin drunk. This is a very sad story.’ 

‘God, the last one was sad enough.’ 

‘This is worse. It’s called _The Death of Innocence_ – a cliché, tried, tired but true. Will you promise not to cry on me?’ 

Tommy looked rather alarmed, but said, like the trouper he was, ‘I’ll do my damnedest.’ 

‘Well, then,’ Reno said as he topped up their glasses and settled back comfortably. ‘I met Dianne when I was twenty-six. I was working as a junior member of a small political research firm in Washington; she was the Press Secretary for an up-and-coming young female senator. 

‘Dianne had quite a reputation around town, for being very good at what she did, without ever compromising her or the senator’s integrity. But that’s Washington for you – no one would believe that Dianne or her boss were actually as squeaky clean as they appeared. I was lucky enough to later gain privileged information. They were indeed that good, and that clean. 

‘I met the famous Dianne at some function or other – there were so many functions while the Senate was sitting that neither of us could ever afterwards quite pinpoint which one it had been. We became fast friends, which was unusual in Washington. Everyone had acquaintances and contacts, allies and enemies, spouses and lovers, but true friends were few and far between. We saw as much of each other as two busy schedules would allow, we helped each other out with news and information whenever we could, often more than we should have –’ 

‘Reno, I’m shocked!’ 

‘To her credit, I don’t think I ever told Dianne anything more than she’d already sussed out herself. And she never caused any harm for the senator.

‘Anyway, it was maybe a year before I realized that I was deeply in love with her. All the feelings I had for her – respect, friendship, love – had simply kept growing within me. I didn’t do anything for a long while; it was a joy just to feel this within me. See, Tommy, I’ve always been a cynic, though I used to call it realism. It was wonderful to prove myself wrong, to finally feel True Love. After a while I told her about it – we were in the corridors of the White House, just after a press conference. Not very romantic, but I wasn’t asking for anything. I told her because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hide it from her for much longer. She was pleased and proud to have unknowingly inspired such feelings. 

‘They were very happy days for me. Our work was successful, our friendship was as close as ever, my love for Dianne was as pure as the romantic in me could have dreamed of.’ 

‘Come on, Reno, don’t tell me you weren’t dying to get into her knickers.’ 

‘Good grief. No wonder you’ve never married, if that’s all you’d think about.’ 

‘See, I’m the realist, and you’re the romantic around here, Reno.’ 

‘Hmmm. Be that as it may, I was content to be in love. And it wasn’t long before Dianne told me that she had fallen in love with me, too.’ 

‘Aha!’ 

‘And we were _both_ content to simply be in love for a while.’ 

Tommy groaned and rolled his eyes heavenward. 

‘Finally I proposed, and we were married within a couple of weeks. And, seeing as you’re so interested, we didn’t have sex until our wedding night. Then it was back to work the next day. In fact, as I remember, she got a call from the senator at six in the morning. 

‘It’s important you know what Dianne meant to me. My marriage to Mary-Louise I’d long ago chalked up to the folly of youth. Our break-up had been sad but inevitable. Dianne, though, I loved in the fullness of life. She was everything to me, I was devoted to her, I was in love in that heart-thumping, knee-quivering way that novelists write about. And I knew I would feel that way for Dianne for the rest of my life. That was never going to change. 

‘And she was the most amazing person to be in love with. Always go for someone with wit and intelligence, Tommy. She’d write me the most eloquent, funny, touching love letters, she’d send me flowers and cards, she was my best friend, we’d talk all night. She devoted so much time and thought and energy to us, and I responded in kind as best I could.

‘We hadn’t discussed having kids. I knew Dianne was on the pill, and we both were so caught up in our careers. But when she accidentally fell pregnant, we were both overjoyed. She took time off when the baby was born, but the maternity leave conditions weren’t very favorable back then. She ended up resigning to spend her days mothering. And we had a second child, planned this time, and life was heaven on earth.’ 

‘So what went wrong?’ 

‘I fell out of love.’ 

‘That easy?’ 

‘Easy? It was the most horrible thing that has ever happened to me. I had believed whole-heartedly in love, and I was betrayed by my own feelings. I lost all faith in myself and in humanity in general. But how could I complain? It was Dianne who had lost out. 

‘She had a husband who cared for her but was no longer in love with her. She had two young children who she knew she would have to look after by herself. She’d put an enormous dent in her career. I was bitter, absolutely disgusted with myself; but I couldn’t say anything, or plead my case. I didn’t even have cause for complaint compared to poor Diane. She didn’t want me staying around on those terms… And the heartbreaking thing was that she was so worthy of love. If I made her think differently about that, then that is the worst thing I have ever done. 

‘She never reproached me. Once the children were at school, she found a secretarial job. I think her senator would have taken her back on in some capacity, but unfortunately she’d lost her office while Dianne wasn’t working. The secretarial job was a massive come-down from her previous work, but Dianne was determined that it be the first step in a new career. And once she was earning again, she quietly asked me for a divorce. 

‘I’ve stayed in touch with my kids – the eldest has just started at a good university – and I know Dianne eventually built up her career again. But that, as they say, was that.’ 

‘But you’re still a romantic, Reno.’ 

‘I don’t know. If I am, then I believe in things that aren’t true.’ 

‘But you’ve been in love again since then?’ 

‘Yeah, and for whole minutes at a time, I find myself thinking, _This is it at last, for the rest of my life_. But it always fails.’ 

‘Lord, Reno, you can be the most depressing person to get drunk with.’ After some serious consideration, Tommy declared, ‘You can’t possibly have had that many wives without being a die-hard romantic.’ 

Reno chuckled for a moment. ‘Might be romantic, might not be. But at least none of them ever called me sushi.’ 

Tommy sat in befuddled silence for a while, before returning to a related line of inquiry. ‘So how many wives _have_ you had?’ 

‘Couldn’t tell you – I’ve lost count.’ 

‘Don’t give me that! We’ve got to know what number Pecos will be!’ Tommy grinned, but his face sobered as Reno remained glum. ‘Haven’t you and Pecos set a date yet?’ 

‘We both have to work through our innate cynicism first. Could take a while.’ 

And nothing Perfect Tommy could say would change Reno’s mind. 

♦


End file.
